Colette (2018)
Review of Colette (2018), directed Wash Westmoreland
I have a major thing for women writers. In case you weren’t aware, I actually tend to get paid for the work I do with women writers and the research of female playwrights. This is a passion project of mine, and I absolutely loving being able to support women in the arts. The writer Colette is known for her works in French, especially her novel Gigi. It was Colette who ended up launching Audrey Hepburn’s career in the 1950s, as she insisted that Hepburn be casted in the lead role of the theatrical production.
I saw this movie on Kanopy, saw Keira Knightley was in the lead role of Colette, and was ready to watch. Keira Knightley truly is the queen of starring in historical pieces, but, I will admit, the last movie I saw of hers wasn’t that good. The last movie was Collateral Beauty, which was a flaming trash can of a movie. And perhaps I should’ve taken the warning from that film, because this movie as well wasn’t exactly the greatest.
I’ve revealed a bit already, so let’s dive into this review.
Content
Although Colette is best known for her later works, this movie focuses on the very beginning of her career. She’s from a rural area in France and has met a man named Willy, who calls himself a literary entrepreneur.
Willy makes his income by hiring a bunch of ghostwriters to write for him, but because he has lavish spending habits, he seemingly is in debt. Colette gets upset when she discovers him with a prostitute, saying that’s where all his money goes, setting off a series of events where Willy takes one of her novel drafts and sells it under his name. This is the beginning of Colette’s career, but, as seen in the movie, as it was marked by unhappiness and then Colette’s own affair with what may have been a transgender man (Missy was born a woman, but identified as a man throughout their life).
It’s a rather straightforward film, I’ll give it that. Because we are following the biographical element of Colette’s life, it just follows the sequence of events in the way that they actually occurred. At the end they give some slides with the remainder of Colette’s life and what happened to the characters after the events of the film.
This is a common story throughout the lives of women in history, where they write original, popular stories but are demeaned for it because they are women and/or a man takes it and sells it as their own because quote: “Women’s writing isn’t popular.”
What Willy did was so shitty, but also quite on-brand for the era. Although locking her in a room and forcing her to write to make money for him is indeed a bit cruel. He’s just a particularly bad brand of shitty.
The setting also was very on-brand for the era. Absolutely loved the clothes and the decor that was scattered throughout the film, I thought they did a nice job with emulating the vibes of the late 1800s/early 1900s with the minimum scene changes that we have. A lot of scenes are repetitive in the setting and are quite similar, so I imagine the set designer’s job wasn’t too difficult.
I particularly enjoyed the concept of public and private, what isn’t performance and what is. In private, Colette abides by her husband’s demands and writes the novels for him, until she increasingly calls for him to right his wrongs and give her ownership of her work.
And, at the end of the day, history has kicked him to the dustbin because Colette has reigned supreme in the literary world. She rose from the ashes and created something magnificent, a personality as a writer and creative in where she dominates. Knightley does a great job as Colette while the character of Missy particularly caught my eye and was well done.
Overall Thoughts
It’s a decent film, I just found myself quite bored at times. The pacing could’ve been a bit better, but the cinematography was absolutely stunning. I’d recommend watching this if you’re a fan of Colette, the late 1800s, or of women writers throughout history. There’s also some fascinating performance bits as well as queer history contained within the film, although it might not be something that you’ll get a lot of. I find Missy’s history to be absolutely fascinating, something worth uncovering and digging into.
